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How to really delete all deleted files that scanned by Recuva?


pan2

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It depends what you mean by delete. Nothing can ever be deleted on a hd, just overwritten. You could select all files using the checkbox at the top l/h, then right click the mouse and select Secure Overwrite Checked Files. This will overwrite (i.e. 'delete') all files except those small enough to live entirely in the MFT. If you mean you want to get rid of the filenames then you can't. Read this http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=14424&hl=

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You can delete these files, pan2.

 

The MFT is essentially a database file- that means it only gets bigger, and never gets smaller. If you download a zip file with 100,000 files in it, extract them and then delete those files, your MFT now has 100,000 entries that will never be deleted.-- The FILE DATA, ie the disk free space, can be overwritten, but neither Recuva nor CCleaner overwrite MFT entries, so these entries will always show up in recuva.

 

But, you can get rid of them- 2 ways that I know of.

 

1.

Download the freeware program Eraser, and use it to wipe disk free space- it DOES overwrite old MFT entries and sets the filesize to zero bytes. By default, Recuva does not show zero byte files, so they won't show up in the list. Keep in mind that NO deleted files will show up in recuva immediately after running eraser, so if you have something to recover, do it first.

 

2.

The other option is to download Paragon Total Defrag. This is not freeware, but you should be able to use it in trial mode. It has on option to compact and trunicate the MFT, which will permanently remove all those invalid entries.

 

-Hope this helps !

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